but i am not talking about emojis… i am talking about emoticons, which came into heavy use in the early 80’s.

in any case, i was trying to be “cute” or cheeky when i suggested that “smilies” didn’t exist in Germany, but i failed to communicate that effectively. perhaps i should’ve used a winky face, or provided a little more context about the origins. sorry about my perceived snarkiness; wasn’t my intent.

EDIT : i am actually struggling to find a reference to “^^” being used by anyone; could you point me to a source, as i am genuinely curious about this

in all seriousness, it’s likely because the origin of the emoticon is tied in with the ASCII character set, and the codes available when the emoticon was conceived. emoticons were around for decades, before we started using them on phones.

in fact, “smilies” are indeed not German!!!